I prefer when the game designers make up their own brands for advertisements in games rather then actual real world company brand names. Seeing Pepsi machines in Bionic Commando, ipods in Metal Gear Solid 4 and energy drink machines(forget the name of the brand) in RLH kind of ruined the immersion factor for me.

For all anyone knows "Titan" could be an MMO-rpg where you roleplay working in an advertising agency. All of this anger about product placement wouldn't mean a thing because you are doing product placement with in product placement.

Crazy conspiracy idea: in-game advertisements means the game is paid for without having a subscriber fee, and thus the game is buy-to-play.

So long as they're not forcing us to buy the things they're advertising, shoving pop-ups in our face every chance they get, or anything equally intrusive... and they're just, well, ads on billboards and shit...
Who the hell cares? It means the company gets more money. Assuming they're not horrible people, the savings will pass on to us.

I hope you haven't forgotten my role in this little story. I'm the leading man. You know what they say about the leading man? He never dies.

If you give in to your impulses in this world, the price is that it changes your personality in the real world. The player and character are one and the same.

So you go out in the street and see advertisement everywhere, on TV, on Youtube, on Facebook and now "shit just hit the fan" because Blizzard wants to do it in games? I totally support this and think it's great that way they'll have to pay even more attention to not screw things up and make a great game, can you imagine the Servers being down for more than planned? That wouldn't result in waves of fanbois spamming the forums but actuall businessmen calling Blizzard and demanding results and put some serious pressure on them. Also if people are leaving the game because of bugs well here comes pressure again.

I dislike it. Not the idea of product placement in games but what this show’s of Blizzard business plan.

Real money auction house, in game stores, casual friendly (aka farm ville), in game product placement, although not confirmed I wouldn’t be surprised to see continued monthly subscriptions and whatever else Blizzard can think up to suck money out of people. All the signs point to a very dirty money gabbing place that Blizzard are heading towards.

It’s like watching one of the greatest games companies in the world turn into popcap games

One thing alot of people are ignoring is it's Product Placement, not in-game Advertisements. It could be as small as a dialog "I gave jim some Tylenol and he was better!" to visuals (Coke on the counter), to "You need to steal that Corvette from the Chevy dealer!"

There's a massive difference between casual games like Farmville and pretty much any MMO, you might as well say they were making the game more like Tetris.

Anyhow notice they say he will be looking in to product placement and licensing, so we'll probably see a lot of products that have payed to advertise in game (i.e. coke cans, certain brands of chocolate, billboards etc) but also products that require games to pay them a licensing fee (cars and guns for example - in Goldeneye they had the "Soviet" rifle because they didn't want to pay for the AK-47 brand).

Probably the biggest clue to what Titan will be like, current time or near-future Earth I'm guessing :-)

I think people are viewing this future game in a wrong perspective. What if it is aimed at real life/or the current time-span? maybe something like fallout-esque environment where big corps have more power and you are a mercenary for some cause?

Some in-game advertising is bad, and some of it isn't all that offensive. See Deus Ex for example:

pic

i think the rainbow six series had simmilar, it had posters up and stuff in the buildings and it fit with the game. if its a modern city advertising works, but if its set in a fantasy land or post-apocalyptic ads dont really work so well.

Originally Posted by Mormolyce

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Is there any difference between this and the iPistol billboards in Starcraft 2, other than Blizzard will be paid for it? If it's true, I'm sure Blizzard will handle it in a way that fits in with the feel of the game.

I reckon Titan and WoW will share a subscription.

I agree with you on both points. Blizzard will continue to Value Add to your BattleNet Subscription, as it will become. Using their income to out muscle every other game.

@Ghostcrawler:Some advice: [My pet issue] is why there were sub losses is one of the weaker arguments players use. Players don't have that data.

If the game is set in present day or even in the future then I'd say it makes the world realistic and on par with today. However, if it were to take place in say a world like WoW or even Diablo, I'd cancel my subscript. Advertising with the pets I can ignore b/c I don't have to participate in it, flying into Orgrimmar and passing 4 or 5 ads b/c the Warchief can't fund his war..... well no thanks. We pay money for the product and a monthly subscription to play the game not to be sold other stuff. Market your cards/toys and comic books through your website and or log in screen but if Coke or McDonalds gets bill boards, I'm out. I play games to get away from all the constant advertising on television/movies and even youtube. If I can't go into a world not fueled by capitalism then I'll just go back to reading books. But again, I don't know what Titan will be about, it may fit, but either way I won't play it. I'm a sword/board/magic guy, the present or future (in video games) doesn't impress me.

This is not a job to integrate ads into the game. It's to licence the brand to other parties and make cross-media items in game. The WoW trading card game, which lets you acquire in-game items and mounts with certain cards is a perfect example of this.

Saw this on another forum on this topic. Why don't people get this? The job doesn't mention in-game, it just mentions the game world, and that game world refers only to using places/items from the game.

---------- Post added 2012-01-24 at 05:56 AM ----------

Also, the job title is "Franchise Development Producer" which simply means one who expands the franchise, including out-of-game expansion.

---------- Post added 2012-01-24 at 05:58 AM ----------

And with regard to major brand names, they already to this in wow, I direct you to the harmless Dew-bot.

I think it depends how it is implemented. Have you played Cities XL? they have a lot of product placement in that and it is not intrusive at all. I don't think it is something to be dismissed without any consideration. That being said, I do actually feel that companies are more likely to get this wrong than right. I don't think it is really fair to call it a game play enhancement either. It's ad revenue, pure and simple. Any advert or product could be replaced with one of blizzards usually funny in universe commercials imo and be just as "enhancing".

Just for thought, would you care if all the nuka-cola in fallout was actually coke, probably not. I hope this is as far as this goes.

If it is done correctly, it will be great. I don't mind personally, since many games have done it already, Anarchy Online for example.
To be honest, I don't think game development companies have explored this field enough. It could lead to new business models and new opportunities.

If there's product advertising within Titan, I can assure you that there will be many people not playing it.

This a million times.

No one is going to want to play a game that has advertisements. I'm already annoyed as shit with Television ones.

On a side note, why do commercials other than the Superbowl's exist?
I can understand movie and television show advertisements, since I wouldn't know about them any other way(Eventually, yes, but the majority of people learn about new shows and movies from trailers on T.V.), but products that I buy at the store, I NEVER base off of a commercial.

Every time they come on, me and everyone I've ever known always just mutes and/or walks away from the T.V. for a bit.
I never buy the product on commercials, because if I've been buying a different product, I'm not going to all of a sudden buy their's because of a commercial.

I know there's the whole psychological aspect too, with the fact that if you see and hear it over and over, it sticks in your mind, and therefore you're more likely to purchase that product, just on how it feels based on how often you hear and see about it.

But most people shop by value, do they not?
And 95% of the time, products that are significantly cheaper, are just as reliable etc.
If anything, I find that major company's products have gone further and further down hill in quality.